1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a silver halide photographic light-sensitive material, and more particularly to a silver halide color photographic light-sensitive material which is suitably usable for making photographic prints.
2. Description of the Prior Art and Problems Thereof
The formation of a dye image by use of a silver halide color photographic light-sensitive material is generally carried out in the manner that an aromatic primary amine-type color developing agent itself, when reducing the exposed silver halide particles inside a silver halide color photographic light-sensitive material, is oxidized to produce an oxidized product, and this oxidized product then reacts with a coupler that is in advanced contained in the silver halide color photographic light-sensitive material to thereby form a dye.
As the coupler, because the color reproduction is made by the subtractive color process, three-primary color couplers are used to form three different dyes of yellow, magenta and cyan colors.
The fundamental requirements for the nature of each of these couplers are: the coupler shall have a large solubility in high-boiling organic solvents; shall have no satisfactory dispersibility and dispersion stability in a silver halide emulsion that it is hardly deposited inside the emulsion; shall be so excellent in the spectral absorption characteristic as well as in the color tone as to be capable of forming a clear dye image over a wide color reproduction range; and the resulting dye image from the coupler shall be highly resistant to light, heat and moisture. Especially the cyan coupler must be so improved as to have well-balanced resistances to light, heat and moisture as the dye image preservability.
Conventionally known cyan couplers include 2,5-diacylaminophenol-type cyan couplers, the compounds of phenol with the second and fifth positions thereof being each substituted by an acylamino radical, as described in, e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 2,895,826, and Japanese Patent Publication Open to Public Inspection (hereinafter referred to as Japanese Patent O.P.I. Publication) Nos. 112038/1975, 109630/1978 and 163537/1980.
The use of these 2,5-diacylaminophenol-type cyan couplers improves the anti-dark-discoloration characteristic, i.e., the resistance to heat and moisture, but is not deemed capable of sufficiently improving the resistance to light, and, in addition, is disadvantageous in respect that the resulting dye becomes discolored to be yellowish in the light with time.
Some proposals have until now been made to use dye image stabilizing agents in combination with couplers for the purpose of improving the anti-light-discoloration characteristic of couplers, such as particularly the resistance to light, capability of preventing yellow-discoloration caused by light and the like. As the dye image stabilizing agent there are those dye image stabilizing agents having a phenolic carboxyl radical or a radical capable of being hydrolyzed to produce a phenolic hydroxyl radical, such as, e.g., bisphenols as described in Japanese Patent Examined Publication Nos. 31256/1973 and 31625/1973; pyrogallol, gallic acid and esters thereof as in U.S. Pat. No. 3,069,2625; 6-hydroxychromans as in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,432,300 and 3,574,627; 5-hydroxychromans as in U.S. Pat. No. 3,573,050; and 6,6'-dihydroxy-2,2'-bis-spirochromans as in Japanese Patent No. 20977/1974. However, these dye image stabilizing agents display sufficiently their dye image stabilizing effect when used in combination with magenta couplers, but do not show any dye image stabilizing effect when used in combination with cyan couplers, particularly 2-acylaminophenol-type cyan couplers, and on the contrary, some of the compounds even deteriotate the anti-dark-discoloration characteristic of cyan couplers.